variety

As you may know, I'm a creature of habit and routine.

I can change my routine pretty easily, but that rarely happens. But it did change a couple weeks ago when I started going back to the gym

This means that I have to pack my bag the night before with everything I'll need the next day (which is a lot harder than you think. It's like packing for a one day trip every day.), packing my lunch, setting up the coffee maker and making sure everything is laid out for the next morning. See, my brain doesn't start functioning until well after 7:00 a.m. And if I want to get a swim in before work, I have to be up at 5:00 a.m. That means that I have two hours of no brain activity in which I also have to get up, get to the gym and then get ready for work from there. If I didn't pre-plan the night before, I would be living the nightmare of going to school in only my underwear. If even that.

But the morning swim fits nicely in my routine. The same people go there every morning. Everyone has their own little lane. Everyone has a predictable amount of time they'll be in the pool. And the same old ladies are in the wading side of the pool doing their "waterobics."

Every once in a while, a hapless first timer comes in after 6:00 a.m. and doesn't know what to do because all the lanes are taken. I was fortunate that, even though it'd been over a year since I'd been to the pool, the same people were still swimming and it was like my lane had been waiting for me the whole time.

And then this morning.

The routine was blissfully broken. I was in the locker room with one of the other regulars waiting for the pool door to be unlocked. And in walked... No... traipsed an old-school Barbara-Judy-Liza-Bett-your-sweet-ass-it's-cocktail-time queen. Imagine the gayest voice possible. Then double it. That was him. He still had the holes in his ears and nipples from piercings he probably got in the eighties. He looked about 50ish but could have been 40 but aged because of all the partying he did back in the day.

He asked about the 6:00 waterobics class. I bit my tongue and said that there was a class but he had to wait for the pool to open. He casually... No... flamingly went on about the shape his body was in (which wasn't that bad, in fact) and how he had to get back to working out. The whole time I was picturing him with the ladies in their pool moo-moos. You know the kind of swimsuit that larger women wear that has the fake skirt?

Then he strips down his pants to reveal a pair of onion skins. OLD-SCHOOL onion skins. Little was left to the imagination. It was worse than a speedo.

No one in the morning wears speedos anyway. It's a pretty modest, older crowd. Which I like because it makes me feel fast when I swim.

So I'm looking at the aging homo in onionskins (hereafter known as AHIO) and thinking, "well bless your little gay heart."

But what really made AHIO old-school was the way he was BLATENLY checking out every man in that locker room. We're not talking glances. We're talking staring, up and down with a little "mmm" added for good measure.

I was biting my tongue so hard. For a moment it felt like the YMCA of 1974.

I did my laps. AHIO had fun in the waterobics class.

My stretching afterward was timed so AHIO and myself would be back in the locker room at the same time. Watching AHIO was like watching every stereotype played out. But this time it wasn't a movie. This guy really was like this.

AHIO didn't walk, he pranced. His towel was not utilitarian, it was an accessory. And when he talked, the purse didn't just fall out, it slammed to the floor.

Back in the locker room, I asked how the class was. He was nearly giddy with his answer: "this is REALLY going to help my conducting."

Then is suddenly dawned on me where I had seen AHIO before.

He was the choir director at my step-daughters Middle School. And I remember gawking at him at the concert (and also having NO respect for him because his song selection was putrid.) because at the concert I had remembered where I had seen AHIO before that.

LONG time ago I was invited to a BBQ with friends out in the country. It turned out that "casual" meant "clothing-optional." (and no, I didn't get neked.)

But I won't ever forget getting stuck talking to AHIO, in all his glory, at that party. He rambled on and on about his Junior High choir... all while standing naked, with a cocktail in hand, in the middle of other naked men, in a pasture.

The poor man doesn't belong in Topeka. His faggotry can't be appreciated here. His faggotry is the stuff of legends. You don't see gay men like him anymore. Unafraid, uninhibited.

Seriously though, the checking out needs to stop. Right now. That kind of thing can get you killed in Topeka.